Official Luthiers Forum!

Twelve string tuners that really work can be challenging. About the only options are individual Waverlys, Grovers or Schallers. To make them work, a lot of times you have to cut near the mounting holes, grind each plate down to "half a hole" on each side and screw 'em all down. The best you can do for 6 on a plate seem to be the German replicas (I forget the name) at $300+, or $1K for Alissi's. Most of us settle for the Stew-Mac vintage.
After thinking about it for a while, and some guessing and hope, I came up with these. They are built from 2 sets of Grover Stay-Tites and 2 sets of Grover 309 F-style mandolin tuners.
Basically, the two sets of mandolin plates are cut as shown, and the gears, worms and string posts are stripped from the Stay- Tites. I just cut the plates with a hack saw and ground them down on my 12" disc sander. Seems I ordered the wrong mandolin tuners as they have worm top and worm bottom, but it works out well anyway as I am trying to make the peghead as short as possible for the 12 string MJ, and didn't want the worm/button too high on the P/H. The joint is nearly invisible, and you end up with an 18 to 1 set of very smooth working gears for $160. Only two drawbacks are the buttons are pretty close, and the post spacing is about .016" off the SM vintage specs.

Looks like a great result, Hans. I'm not so sure about the cramped quarters however. Looking forward to the results you see and feel once they're mounted. Thanks for posting.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

JJ, there is around a 1/8" gap between buttons, not great, but workable. All those metal buttons make the tuners pretty heavy though. I may get out my machine shop (Lennox Diemaster 2 blade, drillmotor and mill file) and cut the buttons off, turn what's left of the button round, sand a couple of flats on the ends and install the same buttons that are on the SM vintage, the yellow plastic ovals. That would make the gap around 1/4", same as the vintage. Think I'll wait till I finish the instrument though. Problem with the mandolin shafts is that they are all different lengths for the F5 peghead, and some are just too short for guitars. Turns out that I had ordered the correct mandolin tuners, worm above gear.
Todd, the buttons on the Stay-Tites are not removable. What are V97/H97's?

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Tony, those are the one's I mentioned earlier. I'll trade 18/1 for 15/1 any day, and the set up I've done here has a longer button shaft for solid pegheads that have some curve. I'm guessing that the Grovers are just a better tuner. I'd buy the Stay-Tites any day before Waverlys.

Todd, yer telling me the Stay-Tite buttons are a press fit?!! That's wonderful!!! Thanks...

OK, a little vise mods and we're set for the races. The best 12 string tuners available (at a reasonable cost)...



Weight is 100 gm, the vintage are 110 (200 and 220 a set). Most important is the metal buttons were 80 gm. Even better is that the SM replacement buttons are made to tap right on! Just a dab of cyano and pound them on...if I had the worms out of the assy, I would have heated them a little and just pushed the buttons on.
Here's how close the post spacing is...by SM's specs only .016" difference. I'm using a mandolin drill jig, but I would guess that the tiniest amount of filing would get it with the 12 string drill jig. Same with mounting on an existing guitar.

did you attach those two plates together and if so how?

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

Absolutely, my hat is off to Chris!
Nick, you drop the halves into the bushings on the peghead, and put the screws in. The last screw is on the joint and holds the plates together.